Editorial: Remedial challenge at R.I. colleges

Thursday

Apr 20, 2017 at 6:04 PMApr 20, 2017 at 7:56 PM

It is encouraging to see leaders from Rhode Island’s public colleges are taking steps to help a distinct group of students: those who need take remedial classes in order to move forward with a college education.

These are students who start college already behind, and many of them have limited resources to pay their way. Not surprisingly, large numbers fail to graduate.

In response, leaders at Community College of Rhode Island and Rhode Island College are looking for ways to provide remedial courses, when needed, while also helping students make more rapid progress in earning college credit.

At CCRI, where just 4.7 percent of students graduate within two years (though many of them, to be sure, are part-time), the new approach includes taking a broader look at whether students need remedial help. Rather than rely on a single standardized test, the school is also considering transcripts and other test scores, such as those on the SAT and ACT. This mirrors the approach of some colleges in other states, such as New York’s state universities, which use a number of measures to determine whether students are ready for college.

As Elizabeth Ganga, spokeswoman for the Community College Resource Center at Columbia University, told Journal Staff Writer Linda Borg (“Lessons learned,” news, April 2): “A lot of students are placed in remedial education that don’t need to be there.” The reason: a single test is “not always that accurate.”

CCRI is also letting students take remedial courses as they begin their college-level work, and it is combining some college credit and remedial courses, with the remedial students putting in extra class time. In the process, they receive credit for the regular class.

Likewise, Rhode Island College allows freshmen to earn six credits for enrolling in a writing class that includes a remedial program, and the college offers a remedial math class for free during the summer.

The University of Rhode Island, meanwhile, is taking steps to ensure that high school students are taking the right math classes for their majors. The university’s education and math departments are working with the state Department of Education, school districts and high schools to better prepare students for the math and science courses they will take in college.

These are creative and commendable solutions to the problems students in Rhode Island face. But there is obviously a bigger issue here.

We are seeing too many students in need of remedial help. Two-thirds of the incoming students at CCRI are required to take remedial courses, which cannot help but contribute to poor graduation rates. Let's be honest: That so many Rhode Island students arrive at college unprepared points to a serious problem with the state’s K-12 public school system.

While Massachusetts public schools next door flourish, Rhode Island's are expensive and underperforming. Huge gaps persist between students in many urban schools and those in the suburbs. When the state denies students opportunities that all should have, it hurts our economy. Business leaders look for states with great schools that will produce tomorrow’s workers, thinkers and leaders.

It’s good to see our higher education leaders are addressing the problem on their end. But parents, politicians and all education leaders must work harder to ensure that a diploma from any high school in Rhode Island means that a student is prepared.